The Dumping Ground: Love and War
by BizarrePineapple15
Summary: The Dumping Ground might be just a normal carehome for children from the outside, but it's a whole lot different if you're actually in there. Elm Tree House is a place of scapegoats, romance, thefts, accidents, events, hatred, rivalry, love and war at the best of times. This is the story of Elm Tree House. This is a story of love and war.


Okay, so I ran away for a bit. I haven't written any of The Dumping Ground Diaries since... oh god, uh... the end of April? To be honest, I got a bit too interested in _Wolfblood_, and then it escalated from there. Also, I was busy writing a novel. An original mystery novel thing I'm quite proud of. It's 62,000 words long, took me two months to write, and there's a sample chapter up at .com, if you want to have a look. Please?

I'm a little bit ashamed of myself. Recently I've been taking a look back at my Dumping Ground fanfiction (all 95,000 words of it!) and I'm really ashamed and a bit upset at myself. Here's why.

1) By the Dumping Ground Diaries, the Dumping Ground was filled with my own characters. That's not good. Almost every kid was one I'd created, and that's not how a fanfic should work. Demon, Alexandra, Joel, Saskia (not my character exactly, but still not from the show), Gabriella (same), Toby, Brandon. Skye and Viva in the past. Mark the careworker. All made by me.

2) De-bloody-mon. He was in every single chapter and did almost everything. He was too much of a central character.

3) The 'episodes and series' format. Decided now that I don't like it. It makes the format seem too rigid. When it's just a big long story with chapters it feels more like a novel, and that's the style I feel most comfortable in. Hey, seemed like a good idea at the time.

4) Elektra and Faith. I appreciate my decision to make them both lesbians (Elektra in particular) but not with each other. Wrong pairing, wrong time. And the outing itself wasn't great.

5) New characters every chapter. Kids leaving every chapter. No. Just no. There were too many changes happening regularly.

6) Demon and Carmen. Spare me. Bad idea. Forget that.

7) Demon, Carmen and Skye all being fostered together. Would that ever happen? I don't like the idea or how I executed it. Forget that too.

So... since I've now got more spare time and a renewed interest in the Dumping Ground, how about we start over again?

I'm going to start a brand new Dumping Ground story, following on from _The Dumping Ground Diaries_, sort of, but it'll be a lot different. I'll be erasing quite a bit out of the story. Okay? Are we ready?

1) The characters. I'm going to revert back to a cast largely made up of real _Dumping Ground _characters. The kids will be **Demon, Skye, Saskia, Tyler, Johnny, Carmen, Tee, Faith, Elektra, Rick **and **Mo**. Eleven kids. A 5-6, boy-girl split. Only three characters not from the show – Demon (because why not), Skye and Saskia (because, even though I didn't actually create those characters [thanks indigosky17 and Olivia1995], I love them to bits). Careworkers are **Tracy, Mike **and **Gina**. Gina has a baby called Isabella.

2) Format. One big story, split up into chapters. Nothing episode-y.

3) Elektra and Faith. This is another big change. They're both lesbians, but neither of them have told anyone yet. It's a secret. Shh.

4) Events that need getting rid of. There's some things that will just be scratched out of existence. So: **Demon, Skye & Carmen never got fostered; Demon never had a small romance with a girl called Stephanie; Demon & Carmen never got together; there was never any cutting; Joel and Alexandra never even existed**. (these all happen at some point in one of the three fanfics).

5) But... some events that happened in the fanfics, in this new story, will still have happened, but with different characters. For example, in _The Dumping Ground Diaries _Series 1 Episode 8 there was a big flood. That still happened, but characters who were present for that event who aren't in the story any more (Brandon, Toby etc) were never there.

So... shall we start over again? I know this has been a very long and complicated summary of how this will all work, but try and understand. Quite a bit of the last three Demon fanfics has been erased from existence or changed a little bit.

Now, it's just the Dumping Ground kids, in the Dumping Ground, getting up to all that crazy stuff that they do.

**THE DUMPING GROUND: LOVE AND WAR**

**coming soon to 'Dumping Ground, 2013'**

**A BRAND NEW STORY BY BIZARREPINEAPPLE15**


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